Theme on Saturday #34| Poetry, please...

Poetry had never been my thing. I hadn't enjoyed reading it, and I didn't appreciate it when I was younger. I had wanted words that tell stories, not emotions. And I wanted loads of them. But the more I am getting old fortiori I find myself move for a simplicity of expression. Sometimes I just need words for themselves. I don't have to read stories behind them to be able to find a beauty in them. And that is why I have started to like poetry. I incline to read poems when I crave for heartfelt of moments and feelings. When I seek for solace and comprehension...

And the soul of the rose went into my blood,

As the music clash'd in the hall;

And long by the garden lake I stood,

For I heard your rivulet fall

From the lake to the meadow and on to the wood,

Our wood, that is dearer than all.

(Alfred Lord Tennyson, Maud, and Other Poems - 1855)

For some reason I like to read poetry in the end of Summer. Something about the changing sunlight, dried flowers and the smell of sawdust makes me want to lie down and read Keats and Tennyson. I love them both for they wrote about nature and romance with such an ease and glory. I also like to read about them. I found it easier to grow fond of poetry if you know a bit about poet's background. So I would definitely recommend to read an introduction at the beginning of collection of poems you choose. You would be able to understand and hence enjoy their poetry a little bit more...

"Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death."

(John Keats, Bright Star)